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S e C u RITY SYST e MS ne WS june 2018 www.securitysystemsnews.com
Commer C ial & systems integrators 21
COPS Staffing is Distributed
Across Our 6 Nationwide Locations
Reliable Monitoring Depends on Technology People
copsmonitoring.com
No other wholesale monitoring company matches this level of redundancy for its Alarm Dealers.
Discover why thousands of Dealers trust COPS to help safeguard millions of their
customers representing more than $1 billion in annual retail revenues.
Leading the industry – Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
Advanced Technology
Multiple layers of advanced technology, 24/7 connectivity and real-time
load balancing between our 6 geo-diverse UL listed central stations help us
deliver some of the fastest and most reliable response times in the industry.
Distributed Staffing
It's simple math: a monitoring company can't effectively handle 100% of
your alarm traffic when a site or service outage disrupts 50% of its staff.
COPS takes disaster preparedness to the next level by ensuring an average of
only 16.7% of our total staffing may be affected at any one location.
Plus, we have the unique ability to increase staff at
5
other locations to help compensate.
NORTH AMERICA'S LARGEST NETWORK
OF WHOLESALE MONITORING STATIONS
CA: ACO6132
•
DE: 05-85
•
FL: EF20000481
•
IL: 127-001299
•
MD: 107-840
•
TN: 632/1626
•
TX Burg: B11561/17961
•
TX Fire: ACR-2215
•
VA: 11-1941
Providing nationwide professional monitoring and dealer services from
New Jersey
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Florida
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Arizona
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Tennessee
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Texas
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Maryland
800.367.2677
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Fax: 856.629.4043
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info
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How to find and win new accounts
By Chris Peterson
F
or a million valid reasons that
are beyond the scope of this col-
umn, commercial security has
evolved into an industry of account
management. We do an amazing job
of taking care of our current custom-
ers. In fact, I feel comfortable stating
that we've never
been so effec-
tive at servicing
our customers.
However, we're
not very strong
at growing mar-
ket share and
winning new
accounts. This
type of behavior by the sales team
doesn't appear to be a bad thing
when the economy is expanding,
like right now. However, relying
solely on account management
without finding and winning new
accounts can be crippling when the
economy starts to contract.
What can sales managers do to
reverse this trend? As the leader of
a sales team, you're often stuck in
the middle of every fire in the busi-
ness. Where will you find the time to
build a new strategy? How can you
lead your team to growing market
share, penetrating new accounts,
and winning new business?
Below I've listed five things a sales
leader can do to guide their sales
team to winning new accounts. I've
listed these five ideas with the inten-
tion of not making them inclusive—
you can put only one or all five into
action and you'll see progress. I've
also intentionally left off the idea
of "hiring hunters" because I don't
want you to think you have to wait
for a new team. The ideas below can
be immediately implemented with
your current sales team.
1. Make every sales person
responsible for new business. I
created the following rule of thumb
about new accounts for senior sales
people: No matter how seasoned a
sales person is, at least 20 percent
of their business should come from
new accounts. If a sales person is
consistently hitting their number
with their current customers, take
away the accounts that make up
the bottom 20 percent of their sales
every year. After a while, they'll have
a list of large accounts that take less
time per dollar, and they'll be able to
focus on other whales in the market
place.
2. Have each sales person iden-
tify a list of targeted prospects.
Every sales person should have a list
of targeted prospects that is readily
available to display. New sales people
may have a list of 150 prospects, and
seasoned sales people may have a list
of 15. Either way, every sales person
must have a written list of prospects
they're pursuing, and you should
be helping them get in the door of
those facilities.
3. Implement an inbound mar-
keting program. A well-executed
inbound marketing program will
help your company and sales people
become the perceived experts in the
market place. Of course, leads will
be generated, but more important
will be the awareness and credibil-
ity the prospects will have for your
sales people. They'll secure more
appointments and move through
the sales process quicker because
of your inbound marketing efforts.
4. Hold your sales team
accountable to networking and
social media work. Pursuing a list
of targeted prospects and leading an
inbound marketing program will
be exponentially more successful
if your sales people are networking
in person and through social media.
Networking and social selling puts a
face to the inbound marketing efforts
and will make the cold-calling efforts
much softer and easier.
5. Compensate differently for
new accounts. If you want to influ-
ence behavior, compensation should
be a factor. Two pieces of advice on
this idea: One, don't just reduce com-
mission for sales to current accounts,
but also increase commission for
sales to new accounts. Second,
consider an account as "new" for
one year after the first purchase.
SSN
Chris Peterson is president of the
Vector Firm, a leader in helping security
companies improve their sales and digital
marketing performance.
Chris Peterson